YubiKeys Pair Well with Smart Cards: Yubico

“…[YubiKeys] can offer government employees a further security protection when logging into their devices: Yubico’s keys just need to be plugged into a device’s USB port and tapped for authentication.”

As the popularity of smart cards in government applications continues, Yubico is eager to highlight some similarities between those solutions and its YubiKey USB authentication devices.

In the US, government agencies tend to require that employees use smart cards compliant with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Personal Identity Verification, or PIV, standard. The YubiKey 4, YubiKey 4 Nano, and YubiKey NEO devices all comply with this same standard, and as such can offer government employees a further security protection when logging into their devices: Yubico’s keys just need to be plugged into a device’s USB port and tapped for authentication.

It’s a two-factor security approach that is also compliant with the FIDO Alliance‘s increasingly popular U2F authentication standard, and one that could prove useful for government workers dealing with sensitive data. A webinar detailing how to set up this kind of functionality on macOS and Windows is available on the Yubico website.